Lee Carter walked about the center of the Ba'ku village, while Garek Loran leaned casually against a pole with arms crossed and watched her pacing with a bemused expression on his face. Captain Wallace had beamed up to the Arizona to check on the conditions of Deveraux and Kassia, and Anderson had wandered off on his own. He had seemed enraptured by the simple pastoral life the people here led, and who could really blame him? Carter felt some of the same, as she calmly watched the adult villagers go about their business and the children play in the surrounding fields. Or maybe that was just the metaphasic radiation in her talking....
She shook her head to clear out these distracting thoughts. From the nearby building that served as the town meeting hall, she could see two Ba'ku men and one woman walking toward her and Garek. She recognized Sojef, the community leader, and Anij. Thanks to the effects of the planet's metaphasic radiation, they still looked exactly the same as their ten-year-old photographs in the Starfleet database. The second man was unfamiliar to Carter, although she had a nagging feeling in the back of her mind that she knew him too.
As the trio stopped in front of Carter, a small furry creature skittered into view and seated itself contentedly on the second man's shoulder. Then she remembered. This must be Artim, Sojef's son. The photos of him in the database never showed him without his little brown companion, and apparently that was still true. Carter smiled in greeting. In his early twenties now, Artim had grown up into a handsome young man. He smiled tentatively in return.
He has the signature Ba'ku distrust of technology and those who use it, thought Carter, but her attention was quickly moved to Sojef.
"Welcome to our village," he said sincerely. "It's been a long time since we've had guests from the Federation." He paused in his speech then, as though he was trying to figure out how best to broach an uncomfortable topic. His eyes darted several times between Carter's face and the equipment she carried at her hip.
Carter understood immediately. She nodded to Garek to follow her lead, then handed her phaser handle-first to Sojef. "We will honor your restrictions against weapons in the village," she said diplomatically, "as long as they're returned when we leave."
Sojef nodded and said, "Of course." He handed the phasers to Artim, who reluctantly accepted them, and then stood, holding them away from his body like they were a couple of live Denebian slime devils.
Anij took pity on him and said, "Why don't you take those to the back room, Artim." Artim nodded thankfully and turned to walk back to the meeting hall, still holding his burden at arm's length.
That unpleasantry taken care of, Sojef got down to business while Anij stood a step behind and listened. He addressed Garek now and said, "We've received reports of fighting in the mountains about five kilometers from here."
"Yes, sir," replied Garek. He was trying to be as respectful as he could. He didn't want to alienate the Ba'ku, but at the same time, he had to explain the situation. "A remnant of the Son'a have been attacking the Federation again recently. We've tracked them back to this planet, and we're going to arrest them and take them to trial."
"Must there always be violence with you off-landers?" said Sojef heatedly. Anij placed a restraining hand on his shoulder, and he seemed to calm somewhat.
"If fighting has started here, it wasn't us who fired the first shot," said Garek, feeling the need to defend their side. He was becoming a little hot himself, but a gentle hand on his shoulder from Carter cooled him a little.
The two men stood glaring at each other for a few tense heartbeats. Finally, Garek sighed and spoke, more softly this time: "We'll try to be as little trouble as possible. I hope this incident won't hurt our relations." With that he turned and walked away, Carter in tow. Behind them, two pairs of eyes watched them go. One pair would never trust off-landers, but the other knew that this latest trouble wasn't their fault -- that they would have avoided it if they could.
Once out of earshot of the two Ba'ku, Carter said to Garek, "That was uncommonly mature of you Commander!"
"Thanks. I think."
Any further banter was forestalled by a chirp from Carter's communicator. She tapped it and said, "Carter here."
A burst of static came across the link, then a few word fragments -- not enough to piece together into anything coherent -- but it was unmistakably Max's voice. She'd been patrolling the skies in her fighter. Suddenly worried, imagining the worst, Carter rapped her comm-badge again and called, "Max! Come in Max!" but there was no answer.
Carter turned to Garek and exclaimed, "Something's happened to Max. She must have been shot down!"
Garek's thoughts whirled furiously. "That means the Son'a have a ship," he concluded.
"It must be one heckuva ship -- it's almost impossible to get the drop on Max," added Carter.
Garek came to a decision. He tapped his own comm-badge and said, "Loran to Arizona." Again there was no answer to the call -- just that same static blast. Realization dawned on him. "Subspace is flooded. They must have used a subspace weapon against Vasser. No wonder she couldn't evade it."
"Surely the Arizona will detect the disturbance and respond."
"Sure, but if I was the Son'a, I'd wait until she was on the far side of the planet before making my move. That way they'd have almost twenty minutes before she could be in range to do anything. Whatever the Son'a are planning to do, we're on our own," he finished pointedly.
"We have to do something!" said Carter.
Together, they ran back to the Ba'ku meeting hall.